• Behind the Masks

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost This Sunday morning when I went to church, the Madrigals from our local high school were seated on the stand. Fully masked, they sang “Angels We Have Heard on High” as part of our Christmas celebration.

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  • The Miracle of the Cow

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Daughter #1 is a born humanitarian. She’s been goading our family into good works since she was old enough to talk. However, when she called me and asked me to help to save a cow, I

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  • The Substitute Kitchen

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost I have photos of Sons #1 and #2, each aged 18-24 months old, wearing the same outfit—two years apart. The pictures show both boys fast asleep, face-down in their mashed potatoes on two different Thanksgiving Days.

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  • Mothers are Like That

    Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost My grandmother was 29 years-old the day she almost burned to death. She’d had her fifth child–a beautiful little girl–only a handful of days before. My grandfather, principal at Pioche Elementary, had taken my mother and her sister

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  • The Strength of Small Things

    Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Son #5 took a half hour nap during his AP Calculus test. He still passed the exam. Not unusual behavior for Son #5. He endured a good deal of ribbing from his older siblings about that nap, and

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  • Can No One Stop the Wind?

    “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Robert Frost I remember watching The Wizard of Oz on the big screen in the movie theater. I’m not sure how old I was, but I was terrified of the flying monkeys. How could you defend yourself against

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  • Out of the Mouths of Babes

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Kids know stuff–at least the ones I’m acquainted with seem to. I’m always taken aback when out of nowhere a preschooler accurately forecasts something about his future, or shrewdly analyses the threads of her current emotional

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  • My Finger is Purple

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost I knew Mitt Romney when I was a kid. Of course, he wasn’t a U. S. Senator back then; he was just an annoying Boy Scout who, with his buddies, pushed his way into the refreshment

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  • The Water’s Deep

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Last week my husband stole a chicken. I was headed to a school board meeting when I spied him trying to heft it into the back of our Nissan as I passed the park across from

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  • And the Winner Is . . .

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost When we got married my husband told me, “I promise you may get angry with me, but you’ll never be bored.” For a man who is not particularly self-reflective, that observation turned out to be astonishingly

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  • L’Chaim

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost  A couple of days ago, Daughter #2 called me and asked me to edit a letter she was writing for work. She’s a school nurse, and it was her job to inform a high school football

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  • The Resilient Soul

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost The first time Son #2 ran away, he was barefoot, wearing nothing but shorts and a t-shirt. It was early December, and it was snowing lightly outside. I don’t remember what upset him or even how

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  • Something from the Oven

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost Daughter #1 follows at least two commercial bakeries which specialize in her favorite dessert—pie—on Instagram. When she was in St. George last, she made an extra 40 mile round trip to visit one of the bakeries

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  • Seeking Gold

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost My husband’s current hobby is gold prospecting. He loves wandering out in the hills, trekking through stream beds looking for tiny flecks of the yellow treasure. Sometimes he brings home two or three 5-gallon buckets of

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  • Well-Behaved Women

    Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in. Robert Frost A lot of teachers went back to work last week–a majority of them women, in my district, at least. In an ironic turn of events, many national league sports teams refused to play in legitimate and

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